The Honoured Guest
Page 1
THE HONOURED GUEST
By Aurelia Destiny
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/ use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Copyright © 2015 by Aurelia Destiny
Book Cover: Book Cover By Design
Book Editor: Kerry Anderson (Biographics)
Acknowledgements: A massive thanks to my family on the Destiny’s Gateway Facebook group. Without the continuing support of you all, I would never have had the courage to go this far. I love you all.
Thank you to Kerry, my Editor, who stuck with a newbie and made certain that my dream to be published became realised.
And thank you, Val, your help was invaluable.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aurelia.destiny
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AureliaDestiny?ty=h
Book Description: Fifteen year old High School student, Chelsea Tanner is kidnapped from her bedroom one night by a giant. As if that wasn’t terrifying enough, she wakes up in a forest, surrounded by creature’s right out of a fairy tale!
She is taken to the Unseelie Court, where the Fae are holding a Great Feast. Once a year they take a mortal from the Earth Realm and hold a celebration to honour their Goddess and their Queen, Mab.
The Fae are beautiful and kind and treat her as if she is a Princess, but Chelsea gradually realizes that beneath their friendly demeanour, and joyous celebrations, lies something quite sinister.
Will she be able to figure out what their real plans for her are before midnight, and escape, or will she never leave the enchanted forest?
Chapter 1
Thud.
Chelsea’s eyes slowly opened as her mind clawed its way out of a deep sleep.
Thud.
For a few long moments, she stared blearily around her dark bedroom, the numbers on the alarm clock next to her bed glowed redly. It was 3:10 am.
She propped herself up onto one elbow, shoved her messy, curly red hair away from her face, and glanced around her room to figure out what had woken her. She saw her clothes lying on the dresser, ready to wear to school in the morning, her bookshelf, her computer hummed quietly, the monitor light steady.
Her green eyes went to her closed bedroom door and she listened, but she couldn’t hear either her parents, or her brother, Ben, in the kitchen or the lounge. A moment later she heard her dad’s soft snoring from the room down the hall and she sighed. They were all asleep.
Thud.
Just as she was settling down again, a faint noise in the back of her mind was becoming more apparent. She realised that she'd been hearing it since she had woken up.
Thud.
There it was, every few seconds. She counted between sounds and waited. Four seconds passed and the deep thud came again, and then again. “What is that?”
Chelsea closed her eyes, frowning as she listened hard. What on earth was making that noise? Was it getting louder? It sounded like huge, echoing reverberations with a big pause in between each.
Something about the rhythmic thudding instilled a sense of bone chilling terror into her. She recalled a memory from her childhood - Jack and the Giant Beanstalk - and the words - fee-fi-fo-fum.
When her mum had first read that story to her, when she was only three years old, she’d clutched her teddy bear in her arms and hoped that she would never meet a giant. For years afterwards, she’d tense whenever she heard the sound of deep bass thuds, and visions would form in her mind of a huge form moving through the town towards her house.
It had always been a stupid fear, and her brother Ben had mocked her for it endlessly, but it had always remained. Her mum had never read that story to her again once those nightmares had begun and years later, it was nothing but a bad memory. Until now.
Thud.
It was louder, she was sure that it was louder this time.
“I'm being stupid,” she realised, rolling her eyes. “Giants? Come on.”
Thud.
Chelsea let out a shaky breath and buried her head tightly under the comfort of her warm quilt, trying to drift back to sleep. It was probably just…a truck on the freeway, or a minor earth tremor, or something totally logical. Ah! Music. It was the bass of drums at some party nearby. “Of course it is,” she muttered in relief.
But a party on a Thursday night at 3:41 am?
The thudding continued and she drifted briefly towards sleep.
***
She woke up a while later to the same noise, and shaking off sleep, she realised that the sound was louder.
No, not louder; closer.
Chelsea’s heart began that uncomfortable rhythm once more and she swallowed; her green eyes huge in the darkness under her bed covers.
Thud.
She frowned and listened hard for a few moments, counting two more thudding sounds.
Thud.
She shoved back her comfy quilt, with a depiction of the Anime heroine Eternal Sailor Moon on it, scrambled out of her bed and stepped toward the window.
As Chelsea made her way warily to the window, she caught sight of herself in the full length mirror on the wall next to her double wardrobe. A slender, ghostly form with messy hair, dressed in white shorts and a red camisole that complimented her not-so-well-endowed chest.
She pushed back her emerald green curtains, that matched her eyes perfectly, and the white lace sheer curtains that provided some privacy when the rest of them were pulled wide open to let the sunshine in.
She couldn't see anything down the street from the this window, one of the four rectangular high windows in her room. When she shifted to the other window, and peered into the inky darkness, she could make out things far more clearly, way past the end of her building to where the sound was coming.
Nothing, but a stray blue car (of some type) zooming through a red light. Perfectly normal for Sydney. She grinned at her thoughts and let the curtains slide from her fingers, back over the window, leaving the room in darkness.
Thud.
Her toes curled at the vibration she could suddenly feel through her bare feet, through the carpet and even through the concrete beneath the carpet. She wondered just how heavy something had to be for her to feel it even four floors up from the ground.
She cracked the curtains open again a little and stared out, gaze going to the street four floors below to see it was absolutely empty of people and cars, usually making their daily work trek by now.
When the noise came again, she turned to look down the block, attempting to locate what the sound was and how far off it was. Chelsea couldn’t determine either, but something nagged inside her - a sense of danger.
She went to her bed and sat down on the covers, reaching for her iPhone on the wooden bedside table that was scattered with all her knick-knacks. When she clicked the home button it lit up her pale face; she quickly keyed in her pin and went to the messages. She found her best friend, Kate, and entered a quick message.
>
Kate only lived about ten blocks away. It wasn't the direction that the thudding was coming from, but surely she'd be able to feel it too.
A minute or so passed and then a message came in. From the frowning smiley face emotion, she knew that her bubbly friend was a little pissed to be woken up at this hour.
Before Chelsea could thumb a reply, the blonde sent another message.
Umm....
Actually, she had drunk a Red Bull energy drink rather late, before bed at 10:00.
Chelsea scowled at the phone and glanced back to the window, still able to feel the vibration under her feet. Her head swung around to stare at the door, consideringly. Should she go and wake her brother? Ben would be less likely to yell at her than her dad, but far more likely to mock.
The phone vibrated again.
Her head shot around and she gaped at her desk and the text books spread out all over it, haphazardly. Damn, her maths test has slipped her mind. It was the reason she'd been drinking the Red Bull, so that she'd be wide awake and could cram her head full of formulas at the last minute. She'd never been very good at math.
She'd better get some sleep!
Chelsea sent back a last goodbye text, then tossed the pink phone back onto her bedside table and sighed deeply. She was still bothered a great deal. With a frustrated sigh, and telling herself that she was a fool, that it was nothing, she slipped under the bedclothes and into an uneasy sleep once more.
Chapter 2
Boom.
Chelsea came abruptly awake with a cry this time, her heart already thundering in her chest. It felt like she had come out of her dream already in a full blown panic, but she couldn’t figure out what was making her feel that way.
God though, that sound. It was like…like…something huge was bashing into the side of a building. She wanted to run, to hide under her covers like a little kid, to go into her parents’ room just as she had when she was five and say she was scared.
Boom.
Was it an earthquake? Now, she could feel the ground trembling under her, even through the thickness of her mattress! When Chelsea’s eyes went to the glass of water that she always kept by her bedside at night, she saw the liquid shaking with increasing violence.
Whatever it was, it was closer - a lot closer.
Boom.
She drew in a shaky breath and sat up, slowly pushing away the covers, swinging her feet onto the floor, sitting up even straighter. With her soles lightly resting on the wooden floor, she could feel the vibrations even more strongly. The booming seemed to be coming from deep inside the earth.
Chelsea rose shakily to her feet and padded over to the window, where she pulled the dark green curtain to one side and peered out. A dark, silent street greeted her, in spite of the orange glow of the streetlights. Her gaze scanned the nearby apartment buildings, but there was only a light here and there from someone up early to start a new day.
There still wasn’t a single car driving past; although, there were several parked along the street. She looked at them intently without blinking.
She saw a red Honda below her window was rhythmically moving ever so slowly in time with the booming noise. As the tyres actually left the ground in little jumps, she gasped, stumbling back.
Boom.
The reverberation came up through her ankles into her calves and she stumbled as the sound got even louder and deeper.
Chelsea’s panicked gaze went to the opposite buildings, seeking out windows and doorways. Why weren’t there other people peering out like her? No lights coming on? They had to be feeling or hearing this!
“What the hell is going on?” she demanded, casting a look over her shoulder. Should she go and wake up her parents? She was amazed that they weren’t already up, but her dad was a deep sleeper.
Boom.
Is it getting faster?
Chelsea hastily undid the window-latch, slid it sideways, and stuck her head outside. All the cars along the street were jumping now, and then abruptly, several car alarms went off, blasting into the pearl light of dawn.
Now, people had to be hearing and feeling this!
She looked around expectantly, but no lights went on in the apartment buildings around her, and no front doors were opening. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she whispered incredulously. That was impossible. It was Sydney, right in the middle of the city. People were paranoid as hell about their cars.
For no reason that she could readily figure out, the red-head finally looked up towards the sky. It was instinct, though logically nothing should be up there. At first, all she saw were stars, but then, something huge blocked out the brightness of the moon.
Her green eyes widened in shock, and then fear, her heart leaping into her throat. “What? W-What the hell is that? Oh my God!”
Then there was something massive blocking out the sky and the stars – and it was moving. Chelsea could see it about six blocks down; an ominous dark shape against the sky. It was moving as the ground quaked. The moon was bright in the sky, but it was as if the thing heading her way was shrouded in gloom; as if the very last shadows of the night were clinging to its form.
Boom.
“Dad! Mom!” Chelsea finally screamed out in pure panic, finally unable to suppress the sound that had been fighting to escape her throat for several moments. She expected to hear her family waking up and come running, as they had when she’d been a kid, but there was nothing, no sound. Her dad’s snoring continued.
“Ben!”
Ben was a few years younger, and a brat, but even he wouldn’t have ignored her screaming for help. Something was wrong.
She threw a stunned look over her shoulder towards the door and then quickly turned back to the dark shape that was moving steadily towards her window. What is it? What could possibly be that monstrous?
Boom.
Her irrational childhood fear of giants was crowding into her mind right now and her hands shook; her eyes desperately trying to make out a shape. It wasn’t human, it wasn’t something man-made, and the fact that no one else could hear or see it, meant that it was something supernatural. “Oh God, don’t be what I think you are. You don’t exist!” she whimpered.
She wanted to run to her parent’s room, but she didn’t want to take her eyes from whatever the thing heading her way.
As she watched with growing dread, it became obvious that the giant was searching for something. It stopped at every apartment and building, and bent down slightly to peer into windows, before continuing on.
What is it looking for? She wondered mentally.
Chelsea really didn’t want to know.
***
Chelsea watched it closely for the next ten minutes and terror slowly engulfed her as she finally understood what it was. Her childhood nightmare was coming true. She could just make out legs clad in some sort of dark brown material and huge bare feet striding down the middle of the street,
Cars were crushed under its weight, or they were kicked to the side; buildings shuddered. The giant walked boldly down the middle of the road, with no apparent fear of being seen or heard. Windows rattled loudly, and then shattered; car alarms were blaring and dogs were howling.
It was a giant.
“No. No, this isn’t happening. I’m asleep,” she sobb
ed, hands clinging to the window sill and head craned up to watch the monstrous being. It was coming towards her, she was certain. The steps were too purposeful and the giant was not pausing at all. It knew exactly where it was going.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
She still couldn’t make out anything above its knees except for a faint outline here and there of thighs and waist illuminated by the moon, the traffic lights and street lights as it passed by.
The giant was so colossal, that everything above the waist was higher than the ten and fifteen storey apartment blocks which lined the street. Chelsea couldn’t even comprehend the sheer magnitude of its mass.
Boom.
When the massive creature reached one block away, she yanked herself back into the room and ran to her door in pure panic and terror, barely restraining the scream that wanted to break from her throat. It was only the thought of the giant hearing her that stilled the instinctive sound of fear from escaping.
Chelsea’s hand closed over the knob and she turned it, ready to fling the door wide. But it didn’t turn in the slightest. Nothing. It didn’t turn in the slightest. Her hand jerked the know left and right but it didn’t move, like it had been turned to stone. She let it go and thudded at the wooden panel of the door with her fists, shouting for her dad at the top of her lungs.
Boom.
The room shook as she fell against the wall, breathing erratically; small whimpers escaped her mouth. She curled down into a small ball against the door, huge eyes looking to the still open window.
Boom.
Her crazed eyes went to her dresser where she saw the silver candleholder her friend Amanda had given her as a gift. She crawled across the floor, reached up to grab it, then threw herself back against the door, bashing the handle to try and break it. The clanging noises were loud as she hit it harder, but the candle base warped at the bottom and then it snapped at the middle, parts falling to the floor.